Looking for a high fiber cookie to help you, um, go? These incredibly delicious, cinnamon-scented prune cookies are filled with whole wheat flour, ground flax and rolled oats for 5 grams of soluble and insoluble fiber per cookie. Gut health dietitian designed, and so delicious you’ll be happy to eat one daily!

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I have a whole cookbook dedicated to gut health, called Good For Your Gut, so I’m no stranger to gut-friendly recipes. But this time, I wanted to create something that was truly functional: a little “bowel buddy” cookie for you to help fight constipation. 

So you’re gonna have to trust me on this one, because I’ll admit that they are not the prettiest of cookies.

They are, however, actually freaking delicious: loaded with richly flavoured prunes that melt into the cookies and plenty of chopped walnuts so they’ve got a very grown up, Mediterranean trail mix vibe. 

Oh, they’re packed with 5 grams of fiber and 5 grams of protein each!

How I designed these prune cookies for constipation 

As a gut health dietitian, I was very mindful about the ingredients I selected for these cookies. I wanted a combination of soluble and insoluble fibre (from whole wheat, flax and oats) as well as elements that help promote bowel movements…and prunes are a classic choice because they contain both sorbitol and chlorogenic acid, two compounds that help promote motility and get that gut moving.

Something you should know before you make these – that the rest of the internet probably won’t tell you – is that sometimes, yes, adding a little fiber (and a LOT of water) to your diet is all you need to shift a sluggish gut.

BUT – and it’s a big but, ha – my over 15 years as a dietitian in practice have taught me that if you’re really backed up, you should never attempt to increase your fiber intake until you clear things out FIRST.

Because adding more fibre to a stopped gut is like adding more cars to a traffic bottleneck. So you need to talk to your doc or dietitian about how to get things moving BEFORE you start slowly increasing your fiber intake to keep things moving. I have a blog post for you, if you want to learn more about nutrition for constipation.

I recommend never adding more than 3-5g of fibre to your diet at a time, so eat just one cookie a day to start, with plenty of water. They’re very filling, so I recommend enjoying them at snack time, not with a meal.

Or, you could eat them as breakfast with a constipation-friendly smoothie, like my cucumber + kiwi smoothie!

More wholesome, fiber-rich cookie ideas:

High Fiber Prune Cookies with Oats + Flax

24 cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 13 minutes mins

Total Time: 28 minutes mins

These incredibly delicious, cinnamon-scented prune cookies are filled with whole wheat flour, ground flax and rolled oats for 5 grams of soluble and insoluble fiber per cookie.

• 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
• ½ cup ground flax
• ½ cup rolled oats
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup prunes, diced, TIP: store in refrigerator to make them easier to cut!
• 1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
• ½ cup soy milk, or another high protein milk
• ½ cup sugar
• ⅓ cup avocado or sunflower oil

• Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

• In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar and milk. Set aside.

• In another bowl, whisk together the flour, flax, oats, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, prunes and walnuts.

• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until combined.

• With damp hands, scoop a generous tablespoon of batter, form into a ball and gently press to ½ inch thick on cookie sheet.

If you find the batter starts sticking to your hands, rinse off the sticky dough, leaving hands slightly damp with water again and it will fix it!

• Bake 12-14 minutes, the cookies will be soft, and the bottoms golden. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes and remove to cool fully on wire rack.